Does one truly “roll up” in a Chevy Astro
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Gil Thorp, 1/9/21
So what’s going in with Gil Thorp, literally several of you are wondering? Well, it turns out that Vic Doucette is killing it at P.A. announcing during the basketball games, thanks to his wordplay that dazzles the Mudlark players, whose prowess lies in the physical rather than the verbal realm. Also, it turns out that, like Vic, Doug Guthrie is a nerd, and in fact is the one kind of nerd that jocks truly respect: a car nerd, who may drive a sweet classic Pontiac but is fascinated by automobiles in all their forms, even utilitarian GM vans from the ’00s. It also came up that Vic has cerebral palsy, not that you can really tell from the art, and Chevy Astros are apparently commonly converted for wheelchair use, but Vic doesn’t use a wheelchair so this may or may not be relevant? Maybe Doug is a car monomaniac and literally has to ask about the make and model of every single vehicle he sees. He’s just another brightly colored piece of glass in the rich mosaic of Milford High.
Family Circus, 1/9/21
Jeffy is a simple child, and looks smug because he thinks he’s about to get a cookie. But Billy? Billy, for all his faults (and there are many), plays a longer game, and has realized that even the guy who graduates bottom of his class from the easiest medical school to get into has access to a prescription pad, which will open up a lot of opportunities for a guy with frankly not much of a moral compass.
Pluggers, 1/9/21
Hey, Pluggers, a more succinct and better caption here would’ve been “Plugger CSI,” you’re welcome
129 replies to “Does one truly “roll up” in a Chevy Astro”
RMMD-I think Buck having type two diabetes is good. That is the type of diabetes that with diet you can regulate.
MW-Take Eve to Mary Worth. One of Mary Worth’s muffins will solve all her problems.
JP-Or trying to convince the editors who thought that the person who writes ‘Sally Forth’ would be a good replacement for ‘Judge Parker’.
FC-“Why not? Dr. Morgan down the street prescribes chili dogs.”
FC-It’s medicinal.
Spiderman-But doesn’t talking to someone the size of an ant make you feel like a big guy?
Archie-Wait until it starts filtering all your email and you find yourself with an empty inbox.
Wary Morth:
The way to a biddy’s heart is to tell her she’s getting old so he heart might stop beating unless she goes to a hospital stat.
________________
Murky Tail:
“I won’t get out of this boat! I haven’t even blown it up yet.”
Ibis: “Yes! Boatsplosion coming up! Yes!”
________________
Luann:
Frankly I’m no longer interested enough in this strip to even snark about Inner Beauty pimping Jock to Burnice.
Gil Thorp: Forget the fact that they’re jocks, Vic should just be glad he’s now cool enough to hang out with guys who order enormous burgers for the entire table, family-style. As long as there’s ground beef in this world, no one with a sweet van like his will ever go hungry!
Family Circus: Uh-oh, the kids found those “prescription” cookies Mommy picked up at the dispensary. From the look on Billy’s face, he’s already been sampling the goods — and what’s worse, now that Thel has lost her medicine, she won’t be able to get through another freakin’ day of distance-learning.
Pluggers: Mrs. Roo thinks she’s so smart… but that smug expression will turn to horror when she finds out that’s what a Covid sneeze looks like.
Mark Trail: Speaking of drugs, is Mark on them, or are we? Either way, the visions are groovy, man!
Mary Worth: “Are you sure you don’t need medical assistance?” is what Saul says whenever a woman gets even a little bit emotional. (He used to say “Are you sure it’s not just your time of the month?,” but age and a few punches in the nose took care of that one.)
Dennis the Menace and Hi and Lois: Two very similar strips with the same basic message: No matter how old a kid you are, your dad’s a lazy jerk.
GT – Forget the car nerdity, I’m more impressed by the way the blond guy in the tan shirt and the not-blond guy in the orange shirt can start and finish each other’s sentences.
Luann: I am shocked, SHOCKED, that the censors allowed us to see Berniece masturbating. This is supposed to be a family strip.
@ld: #6
“Luann: I am shocked, SHOCKED, that the censors allowed us to see Berniece masturbating.”
I would be shocked, SHOCKED if Berniece knew how to do so, or even where the appropriate stuff is upon her (“tee hee!”) body. Maybe she’s just exploring to see what’s where (never having paid any attention before), so that she can draw up a diagram later to help her remember and make it easier to look up entries on Wikipedia. That’s the scholarly approach, you know.
Plugger CSI is when the wife tries to figure out who pissed on the toilet seat.
Wait a minute! I owned a sweet 2005 Astro Van. It was loaded, and fit my son’s wheelchair behind the third row of seats, while being much smaller than a full-sized van! Don’t be dissin” on my sweet ride!
Gil Thorp: It’s not a mere Chevy, and Vic lives in that GMC Safari conversion van. Down by the river. La-dee-freakin-da!
JP: Good grief, is anything ever going to happen in this strip? Sophie feels lost, part 34. Next up, Neddy feels lost, then Abbey feels lost, Randy feels lost, then wrap back around to Sophie again. I swear, Ces and the writer of Rex Morgan must be in a contest to see who can go the longest with absolutely nothing happening in their strips before getting called out by the higher ups. Do something, strip!
After a long day slaving at the drawing table then the golf course, various comic strip writers gather at The Nineteenth Hole Pub and Grill:
RMMD writer: Looks like I’m outdoing you on the nothing factor there, Ces.
JP writer: Well, you haven’t seen my upcoming month of Randy pines for his ex, yet!
RMMD writer: Oh, no.
Mary Worth writer: Heh. Hold my beer..
JP writer: Oh come on.
MW writer: No seriously, I have to go to the bathroom. Could one of you hold by beer for a minute?
The exam to get prescribed cookies was at least as arduous and thorough as my medical weed card so maybe Billy does have a future in medicine.
FC: “You’ve caught the clap, and are now being asked for a contact-tracing list? Well aren’t you just the little man now!”
Pluggers: “Ketchup is red… mustard is yellow… cheese is black… yup, you ate at the Burger Barn, dintcha?”
Luann Once again, these girls are supposed to be 19, not 13.
Careful, Jeffy — you start out on cookies and the next thing, you’re mainlining Mallomars. Billy does, indeed, play the long game.
FC/RMMD – Actually, I’m pretty sure Billy’s campaigning to replace Rex Morgan as Buck’s Primary Care Physician.
@BigTed: Thanks for the explanation of why Saul’s nose looks like that. I’d been assuming an early career in pugilism, but your way makes more sense.
BB: I don’t understand the joke here. Considering all we know of Killer’s character, is he somehow gripping Beetle’s feet with his dick?
MT: I’m not convinced that the syndicate adequately explained the talking animal trope to Jules.
MW : “You don’t have the virus, do you? The Covid??”
Crankshaft: And we wrap up another delightfully amusing week featuring Lillian, that lovable old rapscallion!
@Little Blue Bicycle: This can all be explained away with a multiple earths approach. After all, this storyline otherwise depends on the counterfactual that Marks Trail are somehow capable of sexual reproduction, a novelty that can only be explained if Jules’ MT is set in a world that is not our own.
Racing minivans is a thing! Apparently the aftermarket horsepower-to-cost ratio is higher than just about anything, which is catnip to anybody with a welder and spare time on Saturdays.
Luann: Borenice’s beady tiny eyes staring right at us are terrifying
Doesn’t Plugger bear have a Plugger dog character friend who would just lick that shirt clean? …on second thought, that’s too homoerotic for a family strip.
Pluggers: “Plugger proof of infidelity” would have been funnier.
Family Circus: “You’re so ugly, you could press your face in some dough and make gorilla cookies.”
— Redd Foxx
Family Circus: “Hey Mommy, wanna play doctor?”
“Is that a Chevy Astro Van you rolled up in? You’re banging chicks in it, right? My uncle had a VW Minibus and he told me all about it.”
Gil Thorp: One does not simply “roll up in a Chevy Astro van.” — Boromir
C’shaft: At this point, Lillian is firmly beyond “out of touch with modern technology” and well into “deliberately obsolete and unhelpful because everything new is terrible.”
FW: Good to see Holly can be as mean and hateful as her husband.
MT: Pelican Screaming “YES!” is my new favorite Mark Trail character.
RIP Kevin “Tazer Balls” Greeson
Now, that’s how I want to go. #respect
From one Scratchy Scrotum to another.
MW: I vented about this before, I’m going to vent about it again. Eve is a widow. Saul is a widower. If he had an EQ above that of your average rock he would have talked to her about her husband long ago. But he can’t be greater than his creator. Karen Moy needs to get out of her house more often.
MT: I know everyone has a different opinion but I’m tired of this
@Jnoble:
That’s her O face.
Crankshaft: If Lillian had a fully functional slide projector in the trunk of her car the whole time, why didn’t she go out there right away and get it? Man, is she loathsome or what.
GT: this is reminding me of “The Apartment”.
Jack Lemmon shows the guys at work his sweet new flat.
They admit him into their social circle and the boss hints Jack might be in line for a promotion.
“But first….I’m gonna need you to do me a favor, though……”
FC: Remember Jeffy, the first cookie is free. They give you the double stuffed Oreo and then you are hooked. Soon you are wandering the neighborhood looking for loose coins so that you can buy one dollar store shortbread. You are on that crumb filled highway to the sugars. Just like Buck.
MW- Yo Saul, there is something you need to understand. Unlike men, women are not afraid to show their emotions. And yet you have, twice, asked her if she needs medical assistance simply because she is crying. I know you are of an advanced age but I really need to ask this question. You’re still a touchless virgin aren’t you? If so you should be the one crying.
MT- And in one week Jules blows up a LOT of the canon in this comic. No boatsplosion? Mark punching a dude who not only does not have a beard but also has no hair at all? Hold on to your butts folks, we have no idea where this weird torpedo is gonna take us to.
wait, wait, what’s going on in Gil Thorp
in the second panel, someone with blonde hair and a brown shirt begins the question
in the third panel, someone with brown hair and an orange shirt finishes the question
there are people fitting both of these descriptions in the first panel, neither of whom is sitting in a location that makes sense with the framing of the second panel
who the hell is asking about the van?!
GT – I’d love to get my hands on your Astro! Rut-roo….
FC – Jeffy’s needs a Smugostomy. Billy needs to stop playing with Jeffy’s pee-pee under the pretext of playing doctor. Thel need a much better level of mother’s little helper pills….
Pluggers – Um…he’s a bear, so obviously it was the dumpster behind the Burger Barn….
Adios Amigos, DJ.
FC: A few weeks or months ago, who knows, it was 2020, some Mudge or Mudges drew our attention to Jeffy’s stupid
giant pant cuffs and now those stupid cuffs are pretty much all I can see when I look at him, ugh. Wait, no, I take that back. Today I’m also seeing how his upper torso is facing the opposite direction from the rest of him.
As for Mommy Keene, does she have a twinkle in her eye and a merry half-hidden smile in response to this charmingly subversive medical practice? Hell no, her face and hair and posture indicate that she had a wee little drinky somewhere around 7 am and has been nipping since, and who can blame her.
Frazz – Hot chocolate? I’m sure that Susie Jerkins there and Frazz drink hot “chocolate” made with organic almond milk and organic carob, sweetened with organic honey.
Remember when one of the melonheads wanted “warm chocolate milk?”
Crankshaft – That equipment the tech guy is holding in the last panel would make a good lethal weapon. At least it would wipe the smug smirk off that loathsome hag’s face.
FW – Add dental floss to the list of things Batiuk doesn’t understand.
@Poteet: The shoulders on those kids drive me nuts. It looks like their heads are plopped on backwards. And not connected to their bodies.
What really struck me today was the reflector thing on Billy’s head and his Ben Casey shirt. A child’s doctor getup from 1962.
@Poteet: Mommy’s right arm is bracing her against the counter, by the way.
RWO -Isn’t that what their long snouts are for? They don’t need straws.
Vintage A3G – Rex Morgan might want to look at this to see what an actual medical professional does.
@TheDiva: Pelican Screaming “YES!” is my new favorite Mark Trail character.
Challenge authority, Mark. YES! This is your place… for all time. YES! Your own actions have made it so. YES! YES! YES!
@I speak Jive: You’re right. I don’t think even Doctor Kildare used a forehead mirror, not with his lovely hair.
MT: Yeeeesssss! After an pulse-pounding two weeks since his introduction, Ichabod Ibis has hit a home run today! Wow, is he articulate or what? I think we know who’s gonna be featured in tomorrow’s Sunday spread…
Just can’t say enough about this guy. Not only does he have the verbal skills, he’s a Bird-Olympic-level aviator! Such grace… he’s literally poetry in motion! He’s also pretty versatile – can play Egrets and Herons with the right lighting and bill prostheses. Plus of course his namesake Crane…
GT: I wish I’d had the third panel saved to my phone a couple of days ago, when everyone on Twitter was arguing whether the insurrectionists’ tattoos represented “The Thin Blue Line” or “Come and Take It.”
Pluggers: “Sylvia Johnson’s husband’s shirts have lipstick stains. Betty Gardner’s husband’s shirts smell like cognac and cigars. What the hell is *wrong* with you?”
GT: For the record, the Magliozzi brothers, who were the Click and Clack of the Car Talk radio show considered the 1980s Chevy Astros/GMC Safaris to be one of the worst piles of garbage ever manufactured by General Motors. In my own experience just backing one out of a driveway for a coworker too busy to do it himself convinced me never to buy one.
@I speak Jive: #43: re-FW: Someone should tell Batty that dental floss isn’t like a roll of toilet paper. They don’t just unravel themselves at the slightest mishandling.
PS: Lillian is still a loathsome hag.
I think I’d be more upset to discover that Burger Barn is using rotting black cheese on their burgers, but then again, I haven’t been married to a plugger for 30 years, so I don’t wish an agonizing death on my spouse so I can collect the life insurance money like Roo does.
@abadidea: who the hell is asking about the van?!
You for one, apparently.
Crankshaft: “We bought this second carousel projector in case the first one ever broke. In fact, it sure came in handy last week, when the old carousel proj-…. uhhhhhhh… uh oh.”
Fumbly Circus: Welcome to “Young Rex Morgan,” with Jeffy in the role of Buck Butterball.
Funky Whattasnore: Batiuk gives bathroom humor a bad name.
Judge Cratered: “Hurry up and go!” Grandpa says. “The suspense is killing me!”
Happy Trails To You: Exposition Ibis speaks for us all!
The Phandumb: “I’d recognize the sound of Breathless Blondie’s heartbeat anywhere!”
Rex Morbid, Missing Daily: “Type two diabetes? How did I get second-class diabetes?”
MT: I’m pretty sure the screaming bird is a white ibis. White ibises are found in Florida, and the legs and bill look right. What I don’t understand is why this white ibis is so thrilled by this punch. It’s not like Mark is punching a polluter or a destroyer of ibis habitat, that we know of. Maybe the real enthusiasm is for the boats being stopped so they won’t hit the ibis’s manatee buddies.
@Sid, Agent to the Animal Stars!: Hey, just found your comment and so that IS a white ibis! Thank you! And one test of good acting is being able to deliver strange dialogue with utter conviction, and in that sense, your client is right up there with, or even better than, Patrick Stewart!
Dennis, look at Billy. Take in the full picture, Dennis. See how he committed he was to set up his plan. Pay full attention to the look on his face as he lurks just out of eyesight from his mother watching the happy expression of his brother, waiting for that smile to collapse into tearful disappointment.
That’s how you menace, you tow-headed piece of crap. Now go convince Mr. Wilson that some Tic Tacs are his heart pills or something.
Pluggers-Is this a repeat? It feels like a repeat.
Wizard of Id-“Not from a battle. Riding on a chihuahua is from closing act when I perform for the king.”
FC: That play doctor getup probably belonged to Big Daddy Bil when he was little and Billy found it in the attic while searching for Mommy’s stash.
GT: I’m just enjoying the fact that, for a second at least, Vic turned into comedian Joe Pera.
FC: One day, Thel, your kids will be tall enough to just reach the cookies themselves, and you’ll miss these little scams of theirs.
Pluggers: So do the kangaroo and the dog/bear (?) have children? How does that aspect pluggerdom work?
@Tabby Lavalamp:
I see Dennis as more of an instant gratification kid. He’d be more likely to keep refilling Wilson’s daily pill organizer every half-hour or so building up to a lethal dose of warfarin. Blood oozing out of all orifices: menacing!
@Guillermo el chiclero: From the expression on Billy’s face, he may have also found the stash.
@Joe Blevins: re Pluggers: I believe we’ve seen Sheila Roo with a little Joey, and occasionally the Dog Pluggers are shown with children or grandchildren who look to be Dogs, or maybe they’re pets. In any case, a study of Plugger genetics would be a good dissertation topic.
JP: “Different makes change and growth possible, right?”
Grandpa: “Change to me means feeling my corpse decompose into dust, but you do you.”
JP: Sorry, I won’t read comics of people talking to gravestones unless they involve Batman.
Crank: “I got the idea after my last projector broke and I had to sit through a week of lousy ‘Millennials don’t understand pre-microchip technology’ gags featuring someone who looked very much like you! If only I’d remembered about it before having to sit through another one!”
DT: Okay, I’m pretty sure I’ve been following this story all the way, and I have no idea why the blue balloon is significant or how Aquarius would know that even if it was.
MT: I’m really looking forward to tomorrow’s strip, in which Mark attempts to give a lecture about … herons? … but insists that they’re known to incite violence and warns the reader to be cautious when listening to their exhortations, before the doctors lead him gently away.
Pluggers: “Ha! Shows what you know! I ate at the Burger Barn yesterday!”
RMMD: Hold the phone! This shocking revelation has me utterly boggled! Who could possibly have predicted this, apart from literally everyone?
MARY WORMTONGUE: “Sorry, I don’t have a Kleenex! I’m OLD-FASHIONED! I carry a HANDKERCHIEF — by the way, if you ever VISIT my apartment, I need to KNOW — how to you FEEL about SEARS CATALOGS and CORN COBS?”
(And I’m sure the Kleenex™ company paid handsomely for that anti-endorsement — “As NOT used by decrepit characters in MARY WORTH, so you know it’s great for you young moderns!”)
@Poteet: @Poteet: Hmmmmmmm. A ‘White’ Ibis. How, shall we say, CONVIENENT.
#BlackIbisLivesMatter
PHANTOM OF THE BANGALIAN OPERA: Old jungle saying: “Phantom can somehow tell that a given WHUPWHUPWHUP is the sound of a Jungle Patrol helicopter and not, say, a Rhodian Air Force helicopter.” *
*in the Bangalian Helicopter tongue *
**he learned it in Rotary Club
REX MUNDANE, Me.H. : I actually rather like Buck, but I’m happy that at least now there will be more french fries out there in the world for the rest of us.
PIBbbbbbbbbGORN: “And here’s today’s top stories on Weekend Update — General Francisco Franco, and Floaty Novice Monk: both still dead.”
DICK TRUCULENT: “The balloon factory only makes blue balloons first shift on Monday mornings, and most of the balloon technologists are still hung over from their wild weekend-long helium huffing parties.”
@popamatic:#11
“I swear, Ces and the writer of Rex Morgan must be in a contest to see who can go the longest with absolutely nothing happening in their strips before getting called out by the higher ups”
I think they were inspired by the “slow chase” storyline over in BREAKING CAT NEWS:
https://www.gocomics.com/breaking-cat-news/2021/01/05 (and following days)
FAMILY FREAKSHOW: Thanks to his lousy handwriting and spelling skills, Billy has actually just written out a prescription for “cooties.”
@richardf8: 20 years of pugilism followed by 20 years of alcoholism.
MW: You’d think that after living with a young bereaved adolescent girl all summer, Saul would be capable of recognizing human tears.
@Shrug: Bwahaha!
@Shrug: I laughed so hard at those BCN strips. I kind of wish Georgia could include the theme of indoor mouse-catching in her work, because the results could be hilarious. But I understand why she’d rather have her cats and mice get along. In my house, the lucky deer mice end up in live traps. The unlucky ones end up…never mind.
REX MORGAN M.D.: Hi story. It’s us the audience. We were here a week ago. I’m glad you finally managed to catch up with us.
Seriously the only prognosis less surprising would be if Buck was diagnosed with a bad case of the “Dulls.”
JUDGE PARKER: Next to “Grandpa’s” grave is most of Ces’s subplots.
MARY WORTH: She probably needs medical assistance because those looked less like “tears” and more like she was leaking lubricant.
MARY WORTH (2): Saul: “My habit of keeping a hanky with me at all times started during my time in San Francisco during the 70’s and….I guess that origin tale wouldn’t be appropriate now would it.”
DUSTIN: It’ll turn out the dad was never in a band. He just mentioned he played with his organ in college and everyone misinterpreted.
HoTC – Look on the bright side Kat, glasses might force Steenz to give you something other than that horrorshow for a nose!
FC: Remember, Jeffy, the scrip that Billy just wrote you for cookies is free. The one you’ll want later in life for horse tranquilizers will cost you.
GT: Guys, if you’re going to drop product placement into the strip you should really get a visual, preferably of how the van handles on the road.
Pluggers: The ability of a Plugger to use his hands in eating, like the hands themselves, is very much a work in progress.
MT: “Just hang on up there for a second while I…oof!…get up out of this pilot chair and climb up to..ugh…where you are so’s I can SOCK YOU IN THE NOSE.”
MT: Did I miss something? Why doesn’t Mark want to sign for that UPS package?
6C: “Enough to listen to the end of the psychological thriller audiobook I was listening to” is totally not an awkwardly phrased cover story that an alien tuning into her fleet’s invasion plans would give to the duped husband of the woman she was impersonating.
And off-circle, Dolly–behind her cardboard pharmacy window–fumes. She was convinced the “doctor” was going to prescribe fudge, and thanks to her supplier (P.J.) she had it bagged and ready to go.
What is even the point of Pluggers now? The original guy, who was laughing up his well-tailored sleeve at those people, has been dead for 20 years. Even his assistant, who may have been left otherwise unemployable, has stopped. Reed Hoobler or whatever is dead too. Who does it benefit to keep running this crap?
Rabbit Plugger is on the money except for the red stain she mislabelled as “ketchup.” It’s actually blood from when Bear Plugger mauled a waitress for asking if he would prefer a lettuce wrap to a bun.
@Artist formerly known as Ben: re: 6Chx: I was thinking exactly the same thing (why not “Enough to listen to the end of my book!”? Why was it important to define it “psychological” thriller rather than spy thriller or adventure thriller or just a plain whodunit?), but you phrased it much more eloquently than I.
@Poteet: I’m not so coy, myself. One mouse strewn across three rooms on a day when a city inspection was scheduled is something I’ve dealt with before.
@jenna: That’s not a rabbit – she’s a kangaroo named Sheila Roo. Considering the drawing style it’s easy to get them confused.
@22 Ukulele Ike: And a few Mudges’d wish the week wrapped up Lil in a burial shroud. I’m not sure they care if death was involved.
@32 TheDiva: on Mark Trail: Agreed!
@33 Scratchy Scrotum LXIX: That’s one way to get rid of a scratchy scrotum. Not the best, but it’s on the list.
@35 ld: !O! <— That’s my “Oh, NO!” face, as in “Oh, NO, you didn’t need to point out Bernice’s O Face.
@43 I speak Jive: on Crankshaft: The only thing to wipe the smug smirk off that loathsome hag’s face is opening an Ark of the Covenant, and even then I’m not 100% sure.
@70 Shrug: GROAN!
@77 Poteet: Under some definitions, “inside a cat” is a “live trap.” OK, only Crankshaft would say that. Sorry.
@84 gleeb: You could ask the same thing about half the strips on the comics page today and get the same answer: entropy.
@Barnaby Scones: #83: My vote for a COTW mention.
PS: Jeffy would’ve been dumb enough to eat it, too.
@Shrug: Every time I load Pib to find that it’s still stuck back on 11/26, I laugh. It’s probably funnier than anything Brooke’s actually written in ages.
Luann: Relax, Bernice, Jack got that buff body through the magic of steroids. His balls have shrunk to the size of dry peas and his libido, for all intents and purposes, is pining for the fjords. No use having impure thoughts about him, not only does he not play for the other team, he doesn’t play for any team.
My family had a Chevy Astro. It’s a legend.
@Rube: These days, back that down a couple of years at LEAST!
@Shrug: that’s why she looks so uncomfortable. She has no idea what do with the place where she pees.
By which I mean her lady parts, not the sink.
@Guillermo el chiclero: it wasn’t the worst, but it wasn’t very good.
I had one and decided it had to go when I learned I’d have to put it on a lift to change the spark plugs (which BTW were the platinum plugs and cost a fuck ton).
@97 brendancalling: Was the engine transverse-mounted and halfway under the cowl making the back bank of plugs inaccessable?
@richardf8: That’s really interesting. I learned when I moved here that there is no local shame in having deer mice invade one’s rural house. I was horrified when it first happened and thought it was a direct reflection on my messy dwelling. But I found out it happened in neat houses too, and heard a few funny stories about mice found in drawers, etc.
Now I set live traps and ask the cats to please leave caught mice in single locations, rather than, say, barfing up parts of a single mouse in five different places. The cats never listen. Sounds like maybe yours don’t either, sympathies:-).
LUANN: Give up, Bernice. You’re slated to never have sex with anyone, let alone Jack. You signed that lunatic LUANN contract, and if you want to void it, you’ll have to walk away with almost nothing, like Pru did.
@Will: Every time I load Pib to find that it’s still stuck back on 11/26, I laugh.
I have this lurking worry that when we find out why there was this lapse, we won’t be laughing.
@richardf8: @Poteet: Everyone else has cats that catch and kill mice? My feline overlord won’t do anything but play with them until they drop from exhaustion. Then she gives up and waits for me to toss them outside.
MT Scruffy Mark in a plaid shirt punches a police officer(?) in the face because he stands in the way of Mark’s vigilante cause.
Not a good image this week. Poor timing.
Mark Trail: “And this is the leprechaun. He tells me to burn things.”
@Rocky the Flipped-Out Squirrel: HAR! I had a cat who did that two or three times. I feel your servitude:-).
I had another cat who would bring up a mouse from the basement, play with it for a minute, and then let it go in the kitchen or bedroom, maybe in the hope of playing with it again later. If I tried to thwart the plan, the cat would just run from me and release the mouse in a more obscure location. Cats, keeping life interesting.
GT: If it’s nerds, they “roll up.” If it’s jocks and/or bar brawlers, they “ease up.”
@Poteet: #105: I was lucky. The cat I had as a kid would eat the mouse after he killed it and keep it down without barfing. He always started head first and sucked the tail in like a strand of spaghetti.
@Guillermo el chiclero: Does this mean the late-night snack series has ended?
I had an Astro Van, it broke down on the freeway, 15 degree morning, still dark out. I got to sit in a state patrol car waiting for the tow truck, and the cop was telling me why he was quitting, finding car accident victims in trees, drunk crashes and sends his family to the hospital but he was too busy trying to claim that his wife was driving, getting spit on. Fun stuff like that. Good luck with that sweet ride.
Heathcliff – Now that’s something you don’t see every day: A flock of birds having an Anagrammed Grawlix contest. (Performed only by the rare Laggard Maxima Wren.)
@Poteet: I would have considered myself lucky to have discrete piles of barf. But by “strewn” I mean I was faced with empirical evidence that there are 30 linear feet (10m) of intestines in a mouse.
@Midtown: Were you hoping the mouse intestines would be suspended in lemon jello with olive, anchovy and pimento?
@112 richardf8: What about the mayonnaise?
@Anonymous: I don’t know if it makes it any better, but those are Daddy’s personal enforcers, as far as we know.
@Poteet: One of my abandoned cats killed a rat back in October. Well, almost totally killed it. It was still squirming when I came outside. The cat, all eight pounds of her, looked at me like “Take care of this, Jeeves!” Scooping it up with a shovel and rake may not have been the most humane thing I could have done, but I didn’t think the rat was going to hold still for first aid.
@richardf8:Yeah, I stopped reading about the point where it became apparent that this was a strip where farmers have Pablo Escobar style henchmen.
@Will:
9CL: It would be hilarious if youngmonk floated just a little downstream every day. Missed opportunity.
FC: Has anyone else noticed that despite being 2-3 years older (as established in strip canon), Billy is no taller than Jeffy? Normally he should be at least a full head taller.
@118 Guillermo el chiclero: Billy’s huge heavy cranium’s crushing Billy’s spinal column?
@Baja Gaijin: Heck, he’s tall enough.
@120 Danny DeVito: Of course you’d say that; you have someone you can tower over.
MW: Daniel Goleman is a transpersonal psychologist who is most famous for his concept of “emotional intelligence,” and for regularly hanging out with the Dalai Lama, with whom he discusses the integration of science and spirituality. This line about compassion appears to have been inspired by Tibetan Buddhism, in which bodhicitta (enlightened consciousness–roughly and popularly interpreted as compassion, although this is imprecise; there is absolute as well as relative bodhicitta) is a central concept.
@122 Zla’od: Oscar Goldman was the man who said, “…we can rebuild him. We have the technology.”
While “compassion” in English is a Latinate word that suggests sharing someone’s feelings, the Tibetan Buddhist equivalent (Skt. karuna) is understood to mean wanting others to be free of suffering. It is paired / contrasted with “love” (maitri), which indicates positive good wishes (i.e. one wants others to enjoy good things, not merely to avoid suffering bad things). Goleman states that it is not enough to cultivate a certain belief, feeling, or attitude; genuine compassion must result in concrete action.
This raises several problems. One is that since everything is “empty” (sunya) in the sense of impermanent and contingent, the objects of compassion do not ultimately exist. Another is that if all experiences are the result of karma (causes and conditions, often caused by ethical choices made during earlier incarnations), an act of compassion can have no effect unless the recipient has the karma to receive it–and in that case, they are due to receive it no matter what the compassionate person does. (The same would apply to negative actions like murder.) This could explain Saul’s hesitation. He knows that ultimately, nothing he says or does will make any difference.
@Baja Gaijin: Otherwise they’d be sued for, like, six million dollars.
@124 Zla’od: Wow, what a bummer.
@125 Zla’od: Heh heh heh.
Luann: I SEE WHAT YOU DID THERE, YOU WICKED EVANSII !
9CL: I don’t get it. Is the joke that Xiulan’s bow is going into Hugh’s butt-crack? And what difference does the dynamic make?
@Guillermo el chiclero: My husband’s family has a bit of folk wisdom that to estimate a boy’s adult height, you can measure his height on his second birthday and double it. (Which is not totally precise, but pretty close.) Ever since I learned that two-year-olds should be half the height of an adult, kids in the comics look TINY to me. Most kids (younger than teenagers) in the comics are drawn as less than half the height of adults. So, no, the height scale for the FC kids has never been realistic.
Pluggers are filthy slobs with no regard for personal hygiene.